FORMER doubles champion, Australian-born Bob Hewitt, has been suspended from the International Tennis Hall of Fame after allegations he sexually abused girls he coached.

Officials have announced that Hewitt's legacy has been stripped from the institution.

Hall of Fame chief executive Mark Stenning told The Associated Press that the hall's executive committee voted unanimously on Wednesday to suspend Hewitt indefinitely after an outside investigation deemed credible the allegations of multiple women who said they were abused by Hewitt while he was coaching them decades ago.

Australian-born Hewitt won several grand slam events during his career in the 1960s and 1970s and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1992.

No one has ever been suspended or expelled from the hall.

Stenning said the committee did not consider expulsion because it believed that would require a criminal conviction.

Contact information for Hewitt, who lives in South Africa, could not immediately be found.

The Weekend Post newspaper in South Africa quoted him last year as saying: "I only want to apologise if I offended anyone in any way."

Stenning said Hewitt's plaque in the enshrinement hall and other references to him at the institution and on its website were removed on Thursday.

The website had called him an "enduringly elegant player" and a "master of the doubles craft".

"His legacy ceases to exist in the Hall of Fame," Stenning said.

Lawyer Michael Connolly of the firm Hinckley, Allen & Snyder, which the hall hired to conduct the inquiry, said he interviewed more than two dozen people over several months.

He spent 10 hours interviewing Hewitt, who was accompanied by two South African lawyers, in September, but would not characterise those discussions.

"We identified as many of the victims as we could, spoke to them, spoke to their family members and spoke to a host of others with relevant information," he said.

Among those Connolly interviewed was Heather Conner, who says she was sexually abused by Hewitt starting at age 15, when she says he forced her to have sex with him near a high school in Massachusetts.

Conner, who has spoken publicly before and agreed to be identified, had been critical of the hall for not taking action sooner and had sought Hewitt's expulsion.

She could not immediately be reached.

At least two of Hewitt's accusers in South Africa had asked authorities to open a rape investigation.

A South African lawyer representing some of the women said in July that the criminal investigation had moved slowly. The status of the case was not immediately clear on Thursday.

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